And now, the rest of my pictures. (I'm like one of those people who, when you come over for a supposed fun evening, forces you to watch endless hours of vacation slides. Next time, no vacation slides!) Anyway, Friday was Disneyland. On Saturday morning, we went to go see my sister play basketball.

That's right: action shot!

I am so happy that she's kept playing after high school; she loves it so much and she's so much fun to watch. (She said it couldn't have been fun at all, because they lost. But she underestimates how much I love watching her play.) My dad loves it too-- here he is, watching from a conveniently located tree:

While I was at my parents' house, my dad gave me a real treasure. My Oma (who lives in Holland and is about to turn 90) has been writing "the story of her life" according to the fam. As it turns out, what they meant was, she's been keeping a journal. Of course!

My Oma has never talked much about her experiences, especially during WWII. (By contrast, my Grandma didn't shy away from talking about her fascinating life history.) What I'm getting at is that my Oma had heretofore been an untapped treasure trove of family history.

Well. My older sister originally got the manuscript, and then it was passed to my father. For the past several months, he's been painstakingly translating it into English. (Of course, he is my father. I fear for the quality of the translation. And he was telling us how, when Oma wrote about having dinner with all these different dishes, he changed it to, "We had a meal." And when Oma wrote about a trip to Disneyland and the beach, he changed it to, "We went sightseeing." I don't know how exciting his translation is going to be.)

The upshot is that he has now passed the manuscript on to me. My mission (should I choose to accept it) is to type up his translation and clean up the English and so forth. I am also free to call him and ask him to read me the original Dutch, since I could probably do a half-decent job with the translation myself.

Also! My Oma found it very difficult to write after her husband died, so she didn't do it. But while my father was doing the translation, he wrote up some of his own memories and thoughts instead. So I am going to get to read my grandmother and my father's journal-type-writings. It's kind of an imposing project (my father's handwriting, oh no) but how exciting!

Anyway, back to the weekend. On Saturday night was the Feast of a Thousand Wines. Or whatever you want to call it. Each place setting had five wine glasses next to it. The concept was, a five-course meal, and each course would be paired with a different type of wine.

After the dinner, Ian said to me, "You know, if you had just told me about this dinner, I wouldn't have understood. Yeah, yeah, your friend cooked dinner. Whatever." The fact is, Bruce is no ordinary cook. The courses looked something like this:

And tasted something like heaven on a plate, in a bowl, in cookie-shape...

There was fresh asparagus with scallops and mushroom risotto. There was filet mignon (which, yes, I ate) on a three-cheese parmesan flaky-thing with a blackberry reduction sauce and York mashed potatoes. There was sashimi-grade ahi in a vodka marinade, served in an adorable martini glass, which I forgot to take a picture of because I was too busy having food orgasms. And then the crème brulee. Dear god.

Oh dear, did I forget to mention the lobster bisque?

You get the idea.

And each course was served with a different wine! I helped pour some of them, doing my best wine-salesman impression, but by Glass #3 all I could do was sit there and eat the food and try not to visibly drool on myself. "I can't go into a coma until I have ingested all the food."

Katie said, "Now I know why they had vomitoriums in ancient Rome. Because I really, really want to finish this food."

I think we all were ready to crash after dinner was done-- or in the middle of dinner, in some cases. I had a nice long chat with Katie, who is moving to Turkey in June. Moving there. We had a lot to talk about, and I hope we manage to see each other at least one more time before she goes. We avoided the food coma with extensive girl talk. I think Ian passed out on the couch. And the next morning, Bruce looked somewhat like this:

No more wine. Never again wine.

The next morning, I looked like this:

Release the aging llamas.

Because I HAD A GRAY HAIR. My very first one. And here I thought the mushroom was a tragedy! No. No, the true tragedy is that I am now officially aged. I am only 28! How could this be happening to me? Nooooooo....

We got up and said goodbye to Bruce (sob!) and packed up the car, and then headed to brunch at Sitton's NoHo Diner (because I'm still Moni from the block) with Lucy, her best-friend-since-kindergarten D., and D.'s daughter E. (I can't believe how big she has gotten. I still can't believe D. is old enough to have a baby.)

I have one picture with Lucy in it, but I think she would kill me if I posted it.

Lucy gave me a picture of herself with Ben Affleck. If only I could find that, I'd post it, because she looks cute in that one. She handed me the picture and I was like, "Hmm, that guy she's with looks really familiar." It took me a second to realize who he was.

And that, sadly, was it for our trip! We had to hit the road. So we drove home, listened to CDs, and did Ian's traditional stop at Pea Soup Andersen's, where I had never been. Plenty of opportunities for me to get Randomly Artistic. And I'll leave you with that.

This photo op was not my idea.